I got to thinking about why The Secret – and The Law of Attraction works for some but not for others as I was preparing the first session of the new Bounce Back! teleseminar. In the first session, Wipe The Slate Clean, I emphasise the need to clear up the past and ensure you feel entirely ‘clean’ and wholesome about yourself. In this way – and in only this way – you end up with a feeling of ‘deservedness’.
When you have a deep-down, genuine feeling of deservedness, you’re more likely to promote yourself, to get behind yourself and feel deserving of a wonderful life. Without this clean bill of self-worth, you’ll slow yourself down, possibly even sabotage yourself  – and you certainly won’t be truly open to receiving all the goodies that The Secret  is offering you.

The Law of Attraction works with your vibration, with your clarity and your willingness to receive. So, the million-dollar question is – how do you feel about you? How good do you think you are – how deserving? The rate at which you’ll attract what you want may well depend on it.

For a great step-by-step guide to working with the Law of Attraction, check out our new online course, launched today.

What do you think? Does this make sense to you?

The Law of Attraction states that ‘the essence of that which is like unto itself is drawn’, or put more simply, ‘like attracts like’.
Can we use the Law of Attraction to deliberately create our own reality?  By its own definition, the law says YES.  We draw to ourselves a reality that reflects our innermost thoughts and feelings.  With this in mind, why would we not choose the most shining and glorious example of reality that we can possibly conceive?

This course will:

• Help you to uncover your desires
• Show you how to determine your thoughts and feelings, and unlock your true potential
• Identify actions you can take to raise your vibration and bring about your desired outcomes
• Teach you to converse with the Universe
• Provide tools and techniques for making peace with your past, understanding your present, and consciously creating your future
• Develop the knowledge you need to take full control of your life

You have decided to be the creator of your own reality.  Just by taking this course, you are already changing the way you think!

This is the essence of the The Secret – the book and DVD sensation which recently popularised this idea. As a reader of motivational books, you’ll probably have come across this idea in other and earlier books. Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale and Napoleon Hill all talked about the power of positive thinking a generation earlier.

Is It Too Easy?

I find people often have problems with the simplicity or apparent simplicity of The Law of Attraction – you think about something and it’ll happen?

Additionally,  you can have significant ‘resistence’ to the idea of great things coming your way. If you harbour self-doubt and a lack of clear deservedness, you’ll slow down or sabotage altogether the success you want.

Remember, The law of attraction states that the universe responds to whatever you are offering – by giving you more of whatever you are vibrating. It doesn’t care whether it is good for you or not; it simply responds to your vibration.

Your ‘vibration’ is the result of your levels of optimism and self-belief and the challenge is to maintain a consistent, positive vibration in order to attract similarly positive results. Wishy-washy up-and-down feelings will bring wishy-washy results. The law of attraction – for it to work in your favour, requires consistency.

Truthfully, I find that difficult myself sometimes!

The Solution

One answer is to sidestep the notion of the law of attraction  altogether.

Substitute it with something that doesn’t require such a leap of faith and such a suspension of disbelief and self-doubt; something that feels more down-to-earth and doable.

This something is The law of Focus. It’s similar to the law of attraction but subtly different and in my experience, easier to work with.

You’ll undoubtedly have already experienced the law of focus in your life. If you’ve ever been pregnant, you may have noticed that many other women were similarly pregnant – it may have felt like your entire neighbourhood was pregnant!  Buy a new car and suddenly it’s everywhere – the roads are full of your Boxster, your Clio, your Smart Car. This is the law of focus operating – whatever you put your focus into increases.

Choose Your Focus

I want you to be utterly convinced that this phenomenon actually works.

Try it out by choosing to  focus on one thing – preferably something that you have no emotional connection or resistance to, something like a particular type of car or cake or coat or anything. Once you’re convinced, you can move on to listing ‘What I’d like to See More of in My Life is . . .‘

This can take ten minutes  and doesn’t set off the type of pressure and resistance that the law of attraction can.

Keep it light – stay playful, so you’re not triggering self-doubt and cynicism.  Staying light and playful raises that all-important vibration of yours!

Share your chosen focus and let’s all see this brilliant and easy law at work.

Be more attractive

Who doesn’t want to be more attractive?

I use the term literally here, as in the dictionary definition:  “Pleasing or appealing to the senses, arousing interest, a pulling force.”

The remarkable truth is that ANYONE can be attractive, can boost their powers of attraction, can cultivate the ability to arouse interest and draw others towards them. It really does have very little to do with the looks God dished out to us.

Attractiveness is a state of mind!

Gordon Ramsay, Russell Brand, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler. Even in the perfection-obsessed world of celebrity, you’ll find a growing number of rogue sex symbols who don’t fit easily into our perception of the conventionally attractive on the surface, but who exude attraction and sex appeal from every pore.

Passion

What they all possess in abundance is self-belief, a contagious passion for life and a healthy sense of individuality. In the words of the inimitable Ms Midler:

“Treasure forever what makes you unique, cos you’re really a yawn if it goes!”

In essence, that is the first step to becoming more attractive. Spend some time identifying what makes you special. What is it about you, at your best that sets you apart from the rest?

Make a list of at least 10 of your special attributes. Physical, personality, achievements… it’s up to you.

Now set about honouring these special qualities on a daily basis. Get in touch with your best self, and amazing things can happen.

Preconceptions

The next step towards greater attractiveness is about letting go of preconceptions. After years of thinking that attractiveness is just for the chosen few, often people need to give themselves permission to feel and be attractive.

Until we are able to accept ourselves as attractive beings, how on earth can we expect others to receive us in this way? This process could start with a simple affirmation such as  “I am willing to see myself as attractive.” Repeat this as often as possible. A change will come.

Next, we need to focus on image and first impressions. Attractive people take care of themselves. They look after their bodies and enjoy looking their best.

This is not to be confused with that particularly unattractive trait of vanity, and a preoccupation with image, fashion and appearance. Truly attractive people are simply comfortable and confident with the way they look.

They know they’ve made an effort to look good, and this frees them up to focus on more important things - like living their best life.

Five Top Tips To Be More Attractive

1. Establish what you want to attract

Let’s get specific. Create a description of your ideal friend/partner/business partner. Have fun. Jot down everything that comes to mind.

Try not to censor your ideas as “unrealistic” or “out of your league.” Establish what you want – then go for it.

2. Be playful

Stop trying so hard. Let go, and rediscover with your playful side. Smile, laugh; stay open to amusing and interesting possibilities.

3. Loosen up your body

Spend some time focusing on your body. Get comfortable in your own skin. To help you connect, why not try a dance class, yoga or a massage course? Keep your body language relaxed and open.

4. Live sensuously

Indulge and develop your senses. Enjoy beauty around you. Sharpen your appreciation for everyday scents and tastes. Listen with heightened awareness. Get in touch with how your body feels.

5. Believe, and it will happen

Choose how you want to feel. Affirm this to yourself, and then radiate your feeling to the world. It really is that simple. Go on and try it today!

Start to behave and think, as if you already have manifested your dream. Imagine what it would truly feel and look like. What affairs do you need to put in order?

Those of you familiar with the book, ‘The Secret’ will remember the story of the woman who wanted to manifest a husband.

One positive step she took – powerfully demonstrating her intention – was to de-clutter her garage to accommodate her imminent husband’s car as well as her own.

She also de-cluttered her over-filled wardrobe to make room for his clothes. Now that’s believing!

Needless to say, with this degree of belief and her powerful intent, she did indeed meet her future husband. Do you need to make space for your dream?

2. Good Vibrations

One of the most powerful actions we can take to demonstrate our intent to manifest our dreams is to experience good vibrations. You all understand the idea of getting a vibe from someone when you meet them, or when you step into someone’s home.

When intending to manifest your dream it’s important to get on the right wavelength. When I went house-hunting I viewed as many properties as I could, including those way way out of my financial possibilities.

I was deliberately putting myself on the radar of having a beautiful home. Sitting at home looking at fabulous pictures of houses in glossy magazines was the first step, but it could only take me so far.

The next step was to actually experience it. And sitting in those fabulous homes allowed me to get that ‘vibe’!

3. Be grateful

Demonstrating an attitude of gratitude is an extremely powerful part of the manifesting process. I always believed myself to be someone who was actively grateful for all the good in my life.

This belief was tested recently when I decided to buy a house. I loathed where I was living at the time and my focus continually dragged me back to the fact I didn’t want to live in that particular house anymore.

I suddenly realised that the one thing I had never given thanks for was the roof over my head. This was an epiphany! I began every day and ended every night by thanking the universe for having a home.

I realised what an advantaged position I was in. I wasn’t living on the streets – I was warm, dry and comfortable.

This shift in my consciousness was enormous. With hindsight, I believe that getting grateful for the home I already had helped me manifest my dream home.

Get into a daily habit of morning and evening gratitude. It’s a way of praying, less a begging letter to God, more of a Thank You note!

4. Change is a many splendoured thing

Understand that with the realisation of your dream, change is inevitable. Be careful not to so caught up in doing the ‘work’ of manifesting that when you do manifest your dreams you find it a challenge to comfortably receive it.

With any major goal you have ever achieved, comes with it the inevitability of change. Change can be off-putting if you are not ready or willing to embrace it.

We have all read about lottery winners who squander their winnings and take themselves right back to where they started.

Are you flexible enough in your thinking to be willing to embrace change? What implications does realising your dream have for you and your life? Think it through.

5. Fast track your dream by supporting others

One of the most powerful tricks of attracting anything into your life is to help others achieve that which you crave.

When you support others to achieve their dreams, be it a new home or a new relationship you are demonstrating your belief that there is enough for all of us.

You are positioning yourself on the wavelengths of abundance and generosity, well away from those of lack and fear. Quelle horreur!

It takes courage and generosity to help a friend move into their fabulous new home when you may be struggling to pay the rent, or to set someone up on a blind date with your gorgeous best friend when you are date-deficient!

You reap what you sow. Sow those seeds of support from a generous heart, knowing all the while that your turn is fast approaching.

Happy manifesting!

What happens when the one thing that has always eluded you turns up on your doorstep? How can we prepare ourselves for the delivery of our dreams?

My experience has taught me that whilst desiring, asking and believing are all great – equally important is the ability to receive that which you have asked for.

It is easy to spend your life in a constant state of longing; dreaming of the moment when everything falls into place – the perfect job, perfect home, perfect partner, only to find that when the dream arrives, you renege on the deal.

Safety Trap

You become the proverbial horse that bows its head at the fence and backs away, crawling into the ‘safety’ of the familiar, however dull. In effect, we step back onto the treadmill of ‘wanting.’

Wanting doesn’t require you to take responsibility or to change. Achieving your dream may well do. Wanting keeps you in a state of limbo, or for a more secular analogy – in a no-man’s land!

Making space for your dream to materialise is as much a part of the law of attraction as any other aspect.

Peter’s Story

Recently I coached a client (he’s happy for me to reveal this) who I’ll call Peter.

Peter believed he was ready to meet his perfect partner. He’d wanted to meet her for a number of years but all he really knew was that feeling of wanting.

After learning about the Law of Attraction, Peter was eager to test the theory and shortly afterwards manifested the woman of his dreams. Result!

But his ‘dream’ was short lived and after a brief relationship they parted. Peter couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. As coaching progressed we discovered that he had made no preparation to enable him to joyfully accept his dream partner.

Breakthrough

He suddenly had a breakthrough. Here’s what he realised: he still had a poem he had written for his ex-wife hanging on his bedroom wall: his photograph albums were filled with pictures of his ex-partners: he even had his ex-wife’s engagement ring in his bedside cabinet and he had love notes from various ex-girlfriends in his kitchen cupboards.

Ahaa! His ‘dream’ simply didn’t have the space to breathe or grow. As this realisation dawned on him, he began to grasp that his lack of preparation had prevented him from allowing a new relationship to evolve.

I’m not suggesting that you deny your past. We all have one. But there comes a time when you may need to acknowledge it, wrap it up, put it away and move forward.

Can you honestly say if you manifested your dream tomorrow you would be ready for it?

The message of The Secret is not new – indeed, one of the very criticisms levelled at it.

Its metaphysical message of ask and you shall receive, as a man thinketh is to be found in the Bible and almost every other spiritual text.

I am a believer and have been practicing the Law of Attraction (you attract what you focus on) for well-nigh twenty years now!

Psyching yourself up to believe in your ability to succeed, fueling your conviction and learning to control your focus is vital for successfully manifesting.

Someone who has developed spectacular finesse in applying The Law of Attraction and ‘manifesting’ their dreams is my great friend, the actress and coach, Rita Hamill.

Over the past few years I have watched Rita get faster at pulling – metaphysically speaking – her desires to her. She has read dozens of books on the art of manifesting and is now something of an expert on the matter.

She has surpassed herself recently in manifesting a man – a fabulous man! And a proper life partner. I persuaded her to say a few words on it all and give you her top tips on manifesting, whether it’s a new job, more business, a man, a woman. You name it!

Rudyard Kipling may not have been talking about out current climate of fear, but his words are utterly relevant to today’s challenge – to keep your head and not get consumed by the fear that is swirling around right now.

This is the time to filter your influences carefully, whether they be from the media, colleagues, friends and family.

Even strait-laced economists are warning that we’re in danger of talking ourselves into a recession. And, they’ve probably never even heard of The Law of Attraction!

Remember, your thoughts and beliefs are bearing fruit all the time, fearful or otherwise.

Stay strong: focus on what you want rather than what you don’t: confront worry, then deal with it: look for opportunity everywhere and take quality support and counsel from expansive, upbeat individuals.

I want my website to be a place of support and optimism for you. Our courses and our fantastic forum, where you can meet dynamic, like-minded people, will help you stay on track.

So – take control of your internal world – handle the doom and gloom around you from a place of calm, self-control and confidence.

We all want in on the action (I slipped the word ‘action’ in on purpose – more later) and to learn the secret to manifesting.

However, we could be fooled into believing that all we have to do is sit at home and ‘OM’ very loudly and hey presto, your every wish is granted.

Action

The likes of Sai Baba and other mystics may well be this fortunate. However, for the majority of us it takes a little more time, energy, courage and ACTION.

Manifesting is fun, and I liken learning to use the Law of Attraction to learning how to play a new instrument.

The first time you pick it up you may not have much luck but after practice, focus, and the intent to master the chords perfectly you produce the desired tune.

Earlier this year after reading ‘The Secret’ I too wanted to test The Law of Attraction. I’d had success in the past with manifesting but this time I was ready to really challenge myself and go for a few things that I believed were way out of my comfort zone – my own home and a fabulous man!

Beliefs

I really did have to change my beliefs, and the shift for me happened when I came to realise that just because something is outside of your comfort zone it doesn’t mean you can’t manifest it.

When I DECIDED to manifest my own home, I was told I was ‘crazy.’ My family and a few friends worried as to how I would finance such a huge investment. But my DESIRE was so strong that I actually convinced myself I could do it. I had total BELIEF.

I FOCUSED on nothing else. I placed a picture of my ideal home along with a bold affirmation on my kitchen wall. I stared at it when I ate, when I had a cup of tea, when I was reading, when I was in the kitchen.

I censored everything around me including the newspapers I read and the people I spoke to. I visualised every day but I also took the appropriate ACTION, and to cut a long story short, I did manifest my dream home.

Victory

With this victory under my belt, there was no stopping me. I decided to manifest my perfect man. At around the same time, not so far away, a certain man answering my description had decided he was ready to manifest his perfect woman!

Luckily for me, he had total FAITH that ‘she’ would turn up when she was READY. And I was ready. The rest, as they say, is history.

The best thing about all of this is that we had both been told on numerous occasions we were ‘too old’ to find love. Thank goodness neither of us paid any attention to anyone else’s limiting thoughts. That’s their reality.

Your mind will seek to develop the picture. Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.’

Norman Vincent Peale said this way back in the 1940′s. The Rev. Peale may not have used the phrase the Law of Attraction, but this was what he was alluding to.

You’ve heard the saying, ‘what you focus on, you become.’

That’s the idea of the Law of Attraction. When you develop a clear idea of what you want, focus on it, and feel good about it, your mind will consider your wishes to be orders. The Universe will conspire to help to make your dreams come true.

This is why you have to know what you want, focus on the successful outcome, and eliminate all thoughts to the contrary. You also have to take practical steps towards what you want, but the belief that it’s possible, and the positive expectancy of your success, are vital.

In fact, the more powerful your thinking – the more certain your feelings are – the less hard work and struggle you’ll experience.

In other words you’ll begin to attract he sort of good fortune, coincidences and lucky breaks that you see other people enjoying. You may already be one of these lucky people!

My job as a coach is to help my clients focus on their desired outcome, design a brilliant plan and then help them believe it’s entirely possible. This is often the most difficult part.

The easiest solution can often be to suggest that they simply do the work we’ve earmarked, and suspend their disbelief – in other words they get out of their own way. Soon enough results start happening (they always do), their faith in themselves increases and they’ve forged a new path in their lives.

Try it yourself. Get clear, be entirely positive, take action and convince yourself of the deservedness of your path.